An Update on My Book

The final manuscript for Little Tokens, Big Ripples is due at the end of this month.

Somehow, this feels like both a finish line and a beginning.

What started as a personal practice—painting little tokens of kindness and handing them to strangers—has slowly grown into something far bigger. A book. A movement. A quiet rebellion.

And along the way, something unexpected has happened: I am falling back in love with writing.

Despite earning degrees in English and journalism, I found myself wordless in the quiet unraveling of motherhood. Art became my refuge, a resting place for emotions too raw for words.

But as I shift into this season of ponderance and presence, I feel a greater pull toward language—toward the catharsis that only words can offer.

These words don’t just hold instructions or reflections to accompany the art—but they are personal essays. Vignettes from my life that have now been submitted to literary magazines. Pieces that came from the same place the tokens do: my heart.

After a decade of being known primarily as an artist, putting the writer’s hat back on again has been both terrifying and deeply affirming. I don’t follow a formula. I don’t outline. I write like I paint—intuitively, imperfectly, with a desire to connect.

Some pages of this book were hard to write. Others spilled out like breath. And all of them feel true.

The Gel Plate section is affectionately known (by my editor) as the “bulky baby.” It may need a trim. But that’s part of this process—trimming, shaping, letting go.

What we’re keeping is clear:

• The messy beauty of sharing imperfect art

• The real stories behind the tokens

• The quiet magic of being seen

This book is nearly here. And it holds more than step-by-step tutorials—it holds a way of being.